[CRAFTS] Material for Modders (Skyranger, SkyTrooper, SkySpotter, ...)

[Vulgar Monkey]

Out of curiosity, is the size of the wings dictated by engine limitations (like how big a map area you'd need to land it), or is it a stylistic thing?

I'm just thinking regarding your 'long skinny' comment....most aircraft tend to stick to a particular ratio in terms of length/width due to increased mass requiring increased lift surfaces. For a big transport with a delta-type wing you'd probably expect the whole thing to be as wide as it is long, like an equilateral triangle.

The original skyranger has that kind of profile (plus forward canards). As far as forward wings go, they're usually small and used for increased maneuvrability....in real life I dont think both sets of wings being the same size would work too well (pretty sure it'd mess up the airflow) but if you can only make wings so big it's probably a good fictional way of increasing lift surface size to make the plane look more balanced.

Shame the engine doesnt let you do wingtip stabilisers....again, from a design perspective they just look very cool.

Not that these rangers dont look cool, I just have a habit of overthinking unecessarily. :p
Keep up the good work dude.

[Aldorn]

As an introduction, I explained in earlier post that I have absolutely no "craft design capabilities"  but as I am able to modify the Skyranger to make variants, I propose my help for people who wish to make some modifications too, and I enjoy any advice 

Out of curiosity, is the size of the wings dictated by engine limitations (like how big a map area you'd need to land it), or is it a stylistic thing?

I'm just thinking regarding your 'long skinny' comment....most aircraft tend to stick to a particular ratio in terms of length/width due to increased mass requiring increased lift surfaces. For a big transport with a delta-type wing you'd probably expect the whole thing to be as wide as it is long, like an equilateral triangle.

You're right, I have not the possibility to make wings larger than the big one, as the Skyranger map size is limited (max width = 10 ; max length 20)

I think I will make the rear wings just a little smaller (1 tile).
The problem is that I want to make perhaps 5 or 6 different sizes of Skyranger (30/26/22/18/14/10/6), and make them as different as possible...

The original skyranger has that kind of profile (plus forward canards). As far as forward wings go, they're usually small and used for increased maneuvrability....in real life I dont think both sets of wings being the same size would work too well (pretty sure it'd mess up the airflow) but if you can only make wings so big it's probably a good fictional way of increasing lift surface size to make the plane look more balanced.

Right, I had no other possibility than make it larger

Shame the engine doesnt let you do wingtip stabilisers....again, from a design perspective they just look very cool.

Not that these rangers dont look cool, I just have a habit of overthinking unecessarily. :p
Keep up the good work dude.

It's not totally right...
In fact the engine does, I not...

I can use only one part of the spoiler, but it's far to high I guess (cf. PLANE.gif) EDIT: perhaps better than nothing

Then, the way to make it possible is to modify a PCK. There are tools on this site to do so, but for the moment, I did not take time to have a look at it.
If you are interested to deal with, you're welcome  you will find the PCK in the zip archive under Resources\Terrain

[Aldorn]

Updated with Skywatcher, Skyliner and new Skyspotter and Skytrooper

Per order :
Skytrooper&Skyliner
- Skyliner GE
- Skyliner WE
- Skytrooper GE
- Skytrooper WE

Skywatcher&Skyspotter
- Skywatcher
- Skyspotter

Available in thread header

[guille1434]

Hello Aldorn!
First of all, thank you very much for sharing your excellent work here!

  As you said, I wanted to add one (as starters) of you improved assault craft to my personal mod, which is in fact, a complementary mod to the Final Mod Pack. Because I don't like very much the Alloy Skyranger included in the FMP mod (I dont think a V/STOL aircraft should land on its belly, and having the cargo compartment floor at the same level as the ground), I decided to include the Skytrooper design (but with somewhat reduced cargo capacity, 20 troops/3 vehicles), so I worked including all sections of your .rul file to my custom one (except for the "startingBase" section). Also I wanted to the skytrooper to be available to be built after researching the "Improved Skyranger" topic, to make it compatible with the FMP mod.

 The problem is that immediately after finishing the research on "Improved Skyranger", when I hit the "View Reports" button, the game crashes. On the other hand if i just hit the "Ok" button, the games continues. I think the problem is with the ufopaedia section, but I really cannot figure where my mistake is...

May be you, or someone else can have a quick look to  the .rul file in order to find where the problem is?

Thanks a lot!!

[guille1434]

Ok, I think I found the cause... To replace the Alloy Skyranger with the Skytrooper, I had to delete the first craft declared by the FMP mod, so I added the line"- delete: ..." but I just did it in the crafts section. Now I also deleted the "Alloy Skyranger" in the manufacture and ufopaedia sections, and all seems to run smoothly. I am now researching the Skytrooper, and I will see after the research work is finished if the correct info can be seen in the ufopedia, manufacturing, etc...

Aldorn: Thanks again for the new ships! If everything is ok with this first "integration" work, I would really like to add also one of the big craft with side doors and one of the smaller exploration (with big radar range) ones....

A little request to you, just for "eye candy", but I think it will improve the looks of the mod: would you consider to modify the two "big eyed" smaller craft to have a larger (longer?) radome to emphasize its role as sensor/exploration craft? I think they would look more different to the others and will add to the inmersion of the game... :-) A million thanks again!

[Aldorn]

Ok, I think I found the cause...

Nice

A little request to you, just for "eye candy", but I think it will improve the looks of the mod: would you consider to modify the two "big eyed" smaller craft to have a larger (longer?) radome to emphasize its role as sensor/exploration craft? I think they would look more different to the others and will add to the immersion of the game... :-) A million thanks again!

I'm sorry I am not sure to understand your request

Are you speaking about SkySpotter and SkyWatcher ?

If so :
- larger is not possible, as I miss sprites to make it nice
- longer would make it like Skyranger...

Did you perhaps expect something like this ??

[guille1434]

Not exactly, I was refering to the possibility of drawing both the Skyspotter and Skywatcher with a longer radome... The total lenght of the craft is very good-looking, but I just wodered if, to indicate that they have a more powerful radar, that feature could be visually reflected in the craft drawing, hence, the bigger or longer radome...

[Arthanor]

radome as in radar covering dome? The "big white ball" that we are used to seeing? What part of the planes do you associate with a radome? I'm guessing the yellow nose, but.. I don't know.

[guille1434]

Yes! A bigger (or just longer) yellow nose in front of the aircraft! I don't think it is possible to be made to look more "bulbous", but if you can make the nose (just the nose, not the aircraft itself) of the aircraft longer and paint it in yellow, it would be WUN-DER-BAR!

[Aldorn]

Now I understand
Unfortunately this is not possible at this time...

[guille1434]

Yes, I supposed that... But, don't worry, all your craft variant designs look beautiful enough! Thanks for sharing your brilliant work, man! 

[Arthanor]

Hi Aldorn!

I am working on integrating new crafts in my mod, and I was wondering if you could flex your craft building abilities again by making:

1- A regular skyranger, but with a small (one tile wide) side door on each side, right behind the small front wings.
2- Take the craft above, elongate the fuselage by adding one tile behind the large rear wings, keeping the wings where they are, but moving the vertical stabilizers (the vertical wings) back one tile, so they are still at the back of the plane.

Thank you in advance!

[Aldorn]

Hi Aldorn!

I am working on integrating new crafts in my mod, and I was wondering if you could flex your craft building abilities again by making:

1- A regular skyranger, but with a small (one tile wide) side door on each side, right behind the small front wings.
2- Take the craft above, elongate the fuselage by adding one tile behind the large rear wings, keeping the wings where they are, but moving the vertical stabilizers (the vertical wings) back one tile, so they are still at the back of the plane.

Thank you in advance!

Not sure to have well understood your request. If it does not suit your expectation, try to be as accurate as possible (I did not put the side door right to the cock-pit to not loose the XCOM star ; I did not add any floor tile to the second version as not mentioned...)

Rename all files before use (from PLANE.xxx to WHATYOUWANT.xxx) to avoid overwriting vanilla Skyranger

[Arthanor]

Oh man.. Almost there! I was trying to be as accurate as possible, sorry. For me the fuselage is the whole cylinder, so if adding to the top/walls, it would also add to the floor. Could you elongate the floor of the long skyranger to go with the elongated walls/top? (Making it cargo space 16, by pushing the ramp back one tile and adding a "row" of floor tiles).

Also, could you move the side door to behind the wings? Good point on the overlap with the "X" symbol, so, could you move the "X" one tile back too. (So the doors go where the backmost/rightmost "X" currently is, immediately behind the little wings, and a new "X" immediately behind these new doors = one tile back from where the backmost "X" is on a regular skyranger.) Basically, take the door you just added, and the "X" to its right, and move them both one tile towards the back of the aircraft.

Finally, would it be possible to add floor tiles hanging off the sides of the skyranger in front of where the side doors are? (like you have done for the plane in the top right spot of your preview on your first post).

Thanks so much! I really need to figure out how to work with graphics/maps... As soon as I come back from my holiday!

[Aldorn]

Oh man.. Almost there! I was trying to be as accurate as possible, sorry. For me the fuselage is the whole cylinder, so if adding to the top/walls, it would also add to the floor. Could you elongate the floor of the long skyranger to go with the elongated walls/top? (Making it cargo space 16, by pushing the ramp back one tile and adding a "row" of floor tiles).

Done for Longer

Also, could you move the side door to behind the wings? Good point on the overlap with the "X" symbol, so, could you move the "X" one tile back too. (So the doors go where the backmost/rightmost "X" currently is, immediately behind the little wings, and a new "X" immediately behind these new doors = one tile back from where the backmost "X" is on a regular skyranger.) Basically, take the door you just added, and the "X" to its right, and move them both one tile towards the back of the aircraft.

Done for both

Finally, would it be possible to add floor tiles hanging off the sides of the skyranger in front of where the side doors are? (like you have done for the plane in the top right spot of your preview on your first post).

Done for both, but beware adding this ground tile will make your units deploy on it...
(This means capacity can be raised to 16 resp.18)

Is it ok now ?